Five years ago I wrote about Max Richter’s eight-hour piece Sleep. It was being broadcast on Radio 3 and I’d taken the opportunity to listen to it through the night (in the spare room for the sake of marital harmony). I never imagined back then that I would have the chance to experience Sleep live, but finally last month I did, when Richter gave two performances in London’s Alexandra Palace to celebrate Sleep’s tenth anniversary.

I didn’t hesitate. Well, not quite, once I’d got over the shock of the ticket prices that offended my Yorkshire sensibility, I didn’t hesitate, after all would I ever get the chance again? It is such a challenge for the performers that I wonder for how many more years Richter will want to do it. A month later and I am still processing the experience, quite unlike anything else I have ever been to. What strikes me, though, is that looking back on what I said five years ago I would say much the same thing now, though all my emotions were stronger for being at a live performance.

For a start there is the sheer magic of the music; the heart is captured from the first piano chords, while Grace Davidson’s soprano is a thing of wonderous beauty. The time flows so quickly. I didn’t sleep – though many did – but I never wanted to. I wanted to experience the piece in its entirety. Ideally, the perfect way to do so would be to get into that liminal stage between sleep and wakefulness. Perhaps I managed that for a few hours between 1am and 4am when I experienced something quite remarkable: I felt an overwhelming, almost relgious, sense of love. It was as if the music itself was holding me in an embrace where nothing bad could possibly happen.

For the final hour or so I wanted not only to be awake but to leave my bed and join others who were standing and sitting close to the performers. All live music is a communal experience that you share with others, but there is something special about sharing the music with strangers you have spent the night with! There is something again almost religious, a secular all-night vigil, the sense of a journey coming to an end. Max Richter spoke a few words before the performance concluding by saying simply “See you on the other side”, and that is how it felt. We had passed through the perils and dangers of the night together.

At 6am I walked out into the daylight and a beautiful late summer morning with the sun just starting to strike the City. For once, for one short period of time,all was incredibly well with the world.